Evaluation Question 4

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Simply put, without media technology, we would not have been able to create a music video that would look as though it could exist in the real media world. The technologies that were available to us and that we were able to use allowed us to create an effective piece of media coursework, but also to present it in an attractive and interesting way.

Firstly, in the research and planning stages, a technology that was hugely helpful was youtube. Youtube allowed us to view copious amounts of music videos, both recent and as far back as Bohemian Rhapsody, we could then analyse these videos closely and watch them as many times as we needed in order to get a full understanding of what existed in a music video that existed in the real media world. As well as this, we could take screen grabs to put on our blogs which we could use to illustrate what we were saying in our research posts, the addition of visual aids made our essays more interesting to read and meant that the reader could understand more fully what we were trying to say.
Also, we used Youtube to upload our video onto which we could then embed into a post on our blog, this was helpful because it was quick and easy to upload videos to Youtube and we could set our videos to 'unlisted' which meant that we felt satisfied that they wouldnt be found by the general public and no unwanted comments would be left.

Secondly, also in the research and planning stages, the use of prezi was very helpful in presenting our work. Prezi allowed me to efficiently present my work in an organised way using a combination of writing and pictures. As opposed to putting the writing and pictures straight onto my blog, I could create a 3D prezi presentation that moved and once I had finished, I could then embed the presentation onto my blog as opposed to merely posting a link which would have looked unorganised and unfinished.


For the research and planning for our ancillary task, the use of websites such as NME.com and Q.com to see different album covers and to see how they were advertised on these websites, from this we could then plan what we were going to feature on our digipak and magazine advert. Similarly to this, when doing reseach for our music video, I watched channels such as MTV Rocks and Kerrang! in order to see how music videos looked on a television in comparison to how they looked on Youtube, watching the music channels was in some ways better than searching om videos on Youtube because it meant that you would see videos that you wouldnt have perhaps searched for online, where as when youre using Youtube, its a very narrow search and you have to know exactly what music video you want to watch which limits your analysis.

In planning especially, websites such as Glogster.com were helpful in displaying the stages of our plan efficiently, it allowed us to use arrows and pictures to show what steps we were going to take and when we were going to take them. Similarly to this, my iPhone was really helpful in trying to keep us organised, the calendar and the reminder alerts meant that I would be reminded when I had to do something and write on the days of the calendar when we were going to be filming and what time we would be, this meant that we had a schedule to stick to which meant that we could get the filming done efficiently and without any unexpected hiccups interrupting the process.


In the construction stages of our music video, the most important pieces of technology we used was the Nikon camera (to film our video, take pictures of equipment and pictures for our ancillary task) and an Apple Mac (which offered us final cut, photoshop, access to the internet and tools such as the screengrab tool.)
The Nikon camera that we used was essential in the construction of our music video, the camera allowed us to zoom, manually focus and take photos as well as videos. This meant that our video came out looking professionally done due to the quality of the video that the camera produced - this we perhaps wouldnt have gained if we had used a slightly less sophisticated camera.

The apple mac that we used was crucial in the effective construction of our music video. Without access to this technology, we wouldnt have been able to create our music video and ancillary task as effectively as we did in the time that we were given. Going through our footage and essentially putting it all together would have been time consuming and difficult without the programmes the the mac offered. As well as this, the mac allowed us access to the internet which was crucial in allowing us to display our coursework as well as in the research and planning stages.

One of the programmes that the apple mac offered us, was final cut. This programme allowed us to import our footage, drag it into the viewer window, choose the part of the footage that we wanted and then drag the piece that we wanted into the timeline. This allowed us to ensure that the miming was effective and also gave the audience different camera angles because we could put footage from different camera angles next to eachother. Once we had dragged all of our footage into our timeline, and rendered it all (which was very time consuming) we were then able to export our final video into a format that could be uploaded to Youtube then onto our blog.

Below is a link of some of the ways in which we used Final Cut...
 

Another programme that the mac offered us was photoshop, we used this programme profusely in our AS media when we had to produce a magazine cover so using it to create our ancillary task was easy because we already knew how to use the tools and we didnt have to learn how to use the programme all over again. Photoshop allowed us to turn a raw image into what looked like artwork with the effects that it offered, we chose to use the 'paint daubs' effect in order to make our ancillary task look as though it had been painted rather that digitally edited. Also using tools like the crop tool, the paint bucket tool and the grab tool meant that we could quickly create images that we needed to put on our blog, for example the collage of images that is used to show our target audience.

The mac also offered us other useful applications such as the screengrab tool which allowed us to easily get images for our blog and we could easily capture the stages of our construction.

For the evaluation stage of producing my coursework, Final Cut again was really helpful in allowing me to produce videos for my evaluation questions. As well as this, I used my iPhone to record my voice clips which I could then transfer to  the mac and import into final cut, I could then add images and video clips which illustrated what I was saying in the video. My iPhone was also helpful in videoing people that wanted to give us feedback on our music video for evaluation question 3, this again could be imported into final cut and helped us answer question 3 more effectively. The final technology that has been extremely useful in all four stages was Blogger, Blogger has allowed us to present our coursework in an organised fashion and we could decide where we wanted the writing and pictures, as well as this, we could embed videos which made the overall presentation more interactive and interesting.